


Kittens

by gracefulfallen



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Between Episodes, Canon Compliant, F/F, Fluff, Just Add Kittens, Kittens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 03:53:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5524409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracefulfallen/pseuds/gracefulfallen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trying to introduce a kitten to a cat is never an easy task.  Even less so when it's a giant cat that is also sometimes a brooding vampire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kittens

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Tumblr user sleeping-with-the-anemone, for Carmilla Secret Santa 2015. The prompt was "Kittens".

“Hey Frosh.  Look what I have.”  LaF’s voice echoes through the quiet of the cramped room and Laura looks up from her Lit text book.  Startled green eyes.  White fur - the tiny form of a kitten.

Laura knows what this is about - because she knows LaF, and because they had given her a lecture about European funerary customs of the sixteenth century and vampiric legend pre-Stoker, but right now she doesn’t care about LaF proving points about her infuriating roommate.  She bounces out of the chair towards LaF, reaching her hands out to the adorable, tiny… 

“Absolutely not.”  Carmilla has cast aside the book she’s been lounging behind for the past three hours.  She is scowling.  Back arched, shoulders hunched, lip curled up in what is almost a snarl.  The kitten’s ears flatten and it hisses at her, puffing into a tiny ball of fluff.  

Laura covers her mouth with her hands, her eyes huge.  “It’s even cuter when it’s angry!”

She misses the knowing smirk LaF gives her as they shove the kitten into her hands.  “Per found him out by the fungals fields.  Poor thing was cornered by a mushroom colony.  Want to watch him while we wait for animal control?”

Laura’s “Yes!” overlaps with Carmilla’s “No!”, but LaF is already out the door and gone.

Laura coos at the kitten, scratching between his tiny ears and then yelps as he takes a swipe out of her hand, leaping off her lap and bolting under her bed.  

Carmilla laughs as Laura sucks on the scratch.  “I take it back.  Maybe the fluff ball isn’t so bad after all.”  

She sits back into her pillows, ignoring Laura’s scowl and picks her book back up.

 

An hour of coaxing with string and food won’t bring him out from his hiding space and Laura sits back, exasperated.  She starts when Carmilla’s voice comes from the space just beside her, the breath caressing the skin behind her ear.

“I think you’ve scared him enough for one day, buttercup.”  

Laura huffs and leans away - or at least tries to.  Her body is being stubborn and uncooperative though and her legs are numb from sitting crosslegged for so long.  Which is the reason - and sole reason of course - that she slumps backwards into Carmilla instead of standing up like she meant to.  Carmilla stiffens slightly.  Relaxes.  Laura rests against her for a moment.

“C’mon cutie.  If Mister Kitty Fantastico here wants to come out he’ll come out.”  She disappears suddenly and Laura sprawls backwards.  Carmilla chuckles from her bed (she was so damn _fast_ when she wanted to be) and Laura scowls up at her from her place lying on the floor.  

“Wait.  Mister Kitty Fantastico… Have you been watching my Buffy DVDs?”

Carmilla smirks and doesn’t respond.  Laura just gapes.

 

It’s several frustrating hours of struggling through _Beowulf_ later that Laura looks up to see a tiny white blur of determination climbing up Carmilla’s bedspread.  He gets to the top and hisses.  Carmilla puts her book down and bares her teeth back, then picks him up by the scruff of the neck and deposits him on the floor.  Scowls off the edge of the bed at him.

He climbs back up, hissing and yowling and Carmilla mutters angrily, “No one said you had to be up here.”  She gently sets him down on the floor again.

Forty five seconds later he’s back up, taking a swipe at her leg.  He misses and topples over and Carmilla isn’t scowling anymore - just staring at him, eyebrow raised, before depositing him back on the floor a third time.  He disappears under her bed and she watches for a moment to see if he returns.  He doesn’t.

Laura goes back to _Beowulf_ until an exasperated “Really?!” makes her look up.  The cat has his teeth sunk into the top of Carmilla’s book.  He’s scratching at the cover with his back claws.  

Carmilla shakes her head and sighs, gently detaching him. “Look, fur ball, It’s not that I’m not impressed with your stubbornness, but sometimes you just have to accept that there are some fights you can’t win.”  He isn’t listening though and squirms in the boneless way kittens can to sink his teeth in to the meat of her hand.  She winces.

“I don’t know.”  Laura says, her voice surprising even her.  Carmilla turns.  “I think there’s something to be said for being stubborn.”

Carmilla snorts derisively, but sets him at the foot of the bed this time.  He kneads the comforter, turns a circle and settles in, asleep almost instantly.

 

She thinks perhaps it is a trick of her mind, but as the hours pass by Laura can’t deny it -  Somehow the kitten has claimed Carmilla as his own.

He sits on her chest, purring and kneading, and she absently strokes his head with a hand.  When she goes to turn a page he bats at her playfully, and she rubs the small space between his ears.

If she stands to make food, or to snag a “spare” cookie, he follows her around and darts between her ankles.  He is always there, a tiny white shadow that stalks Carmilla’s skulking form, waiting for her when she leaves the room.

Laura is standing in the kitchen making hot chocolate, watching the cat watch the door.  He paces, swiping a paw under the door crack.  After a moment the door swings open and she turns to watch Carmilla stoop and pick him up.  

Carmilla scratches under his chin with one long finger.  Smiles down at him in a way devoid of her usual sarcasm.  She looks up, eyes meeting Laura’s.  Pauses.  Tilts her head.  It’s strange, Laura thinks, how much younger she looks when she isn’t sneering or scowling.  She’s so much more… sentimental than she lets on.  Laura bites her lip.  

The moment, whatever it is, is interrupted by LaF slamming the door open.  “Hey Laur!” and they hesitate, looking between the two.  “Uh.  The uh… Animal Control is here…”

They both look at LaF confused for a moment before remembering.  

“Right.”  Carmilla drawls, and Laura watches the barriers come back up in front of her eyes, watches the way her shoulders draw back as she rearms herself against the world.  She scratches the kitten under the chin briefly, then thrusts him back to LaF.  “About damn time.”  

LaF takes him, surprised and looks at Laura, but she shrugs and nods at them and they leave, closing the door behind them.

Carmilla tries to be discreet as she wipes her eyes and Laura pretends like she doesn’t see.  She won’t miss the vicious little mongrel but she thinks maybe she’ll miss the softness it brought out in her annoyingly superior roommate.  And she knows Carmilla will miss him, whatever she pretends.


End file.
